


What you Deserve

by Accidental_Ducky



Series: The Trouble With Mummies [3]
Category: The Mummy (2017), The Mummy Series
Genre: Ahmanet is Imhotep Jr, F/M, Ghosts, Nick is an emotionally stunted goldfish, Temporary Character Death, all the sass, but I guess it works for him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-26 16:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14405745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidental_Ducky/pseuds/Accidental_Ducky
Summary: For a moment, she thought she’d be okay, that she’d be able to hold on until the plane went down. The hope was back, the adrenaline leaving a foul taste in her mouth, but she didn’t mind it as long as she was still here.But then the strap broke free and she found herself viewing the next two seconds in a series of snap shots. Jenny’s parachute exploding open, the white fabric catching the breeze and carrying her safely out. The metal of the ratchet strap seeming to wink as it went out next, flipping ass over teakettle. Nick’s gaze landing on her as gravity began to work again. The bright sunlight as she tumbled out of the plane next. The greens and browns of a field as she collided like some kind of asteroid meant to do maximum damage. The wildfire catching again and tearing through her before blessed darkness swept her away.And then Samantha Blake was waking up.





	1. Three Musketeers and Adrenaline Rushes

When a then eighteen year old Samantha Blake told her parents that she was planning to go into the military, she'd actually thought it was a good idea. She had a background that involved a lot of physical training and handling guns of all shapes and sizes, she was stubborn enough to survive basic training, and she had a pretty calm nature that would help her in times of crises.

Her mother had rolled with the news and gave a bright, beaming smile that always made Sammi feel loved. Eva Blake was kind and optimistic above all else, which made her a fantastic preschool teacher. Jared, on the other hand, was a completely different story. He had disapproved of Samantha's decision only because he didn't like to think of his only child in mortal danger. He came around, of course, and by the time Samantha was twenty, he even owned a camouflage shirt with  _My daughter can kick your honor student's ass_  printed in yellow on it. He was very proud.

At the beginning, even with the intensive training and yelling of the higher-ups, Samantha was determined to prove herself as a decent enough soldier. The only real problem she seemed to have was her ability to sniff out trouble like a bloodhound sniffed out a deer carcass. Promotions and demotions seemed to go hand-in-hand for her, not that she really cared about what rank she was.

And now, a year shy of forty, she was seriously starting to wonder if she had made the right choice twenty-one years ago. If she had just kept her head down, she'd probably be in Dallas working at Blake's Antiquities, far from Iraq and the insurgents currently firing round after round into some old statues.

"I could've had a dog," she mutters.

"What," Chris asks, looking over at her. All but his eyes were covered by a heavy scarf to protect his face from the sand and heat, but she could see his curiosity just the same.

"I'm just thinking out loud again." She waves it off and focuses back on the group of men gathered below, none of them aware of the three people on the ridge. "Is that guy seriously standing half a foot from the crossfire and beating at the statues with a sledgehammer?"

"Looks like it. You know, we used to have smart guys that we stole stuff from, but now it's just…" He gestures at the group of men, giving a disappointed sigh. "They're like Disney villains or something." Kneeling between the pair, Nick doesn't say anything as he continues to watch the on-going stupidity. "Do you seriously want a dog?"

"What?"

"Earlier, you said something about getting a dog. Do you want one?"

"Not particularly. I was just musing on what might've been different if I'd stayed home all those years ago." Back in the clinging humidity of a Texas summer, cousins always nearby due to how close their families were, grandparents bickering about their glory days. It was appealing, but it would've been boring as all hell. "I think I'd rather be here."

"Seriously? Were you dropped on your head as child or something?"

"Yeah, but my uncle said it was an accident," she teases with a smile he couldn't see. Like the other two, she had a headscarf wrapped around her to serve as protection from the heat as well as to hide the tangled mess of her black hair. She'd learned that she got more respect from locals when they thought she was a teenaged boy than when they learned she was actually a woman. Not that she was complaining, she got to wear pants this way, though Greenway was always berating her for not being in uniform. "Maybe one day we'll have long enough off to go and visit the Blake clan. You and my great-uncle could compare yellow streaks."

"I'm not a coward, I just have a little instinct called  _self-preservation_. Unlike you two, I'd like to be old and gray before I kick the bucket." She grins and sends a wink his way, Chris shaking his head. "Think about it, though, we could be that clichéd old couple that sits in rocking chairs on the front porch and drinks iced tea."

"Watching the grandkids play in the yard with the dog?"

"And we'd have a croquet set near the pink flamingo thingies."

"That sounds perfect right about now."

"Do you two mind," Nick asks, talking for the first time since he crouched in the sand ten minutes ago. "One of us is trying to work."

"More like you're trying to get us court marshalled again. I gotta tell ya, Nick, that last time was no fun."

"Don't get dramatic on me, Sammi. I got us out of that easy. If it wasn't for me, you two wouldn't be planning your retirement right now."

"If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have gotten court marshalled in the first place," Chris returns dryly. Nick stands up, still staring through the crusty lenses of the binoculars he refused to share. "Back to the matter at hand, it looks like we're shit outta luck this time around."

"Nah, we can do this." Chris and Samantha share a look for a moment, realizing Nick's plan a second later and following after him to the horses. The terrain under their feet was rocky but became sand closer to the bottom of the slope, making running a difficult task.

"Hell no! Command thinks we're doing advanced recon a hundred miles from here and I know Greenway would mount our heads on his wall if we die doing something so stupid as rushing head-first at a bunch of  _armed insurgents_."

"Chris is right," Samantha adds, angrily shedding the robes that were trying to tangle around her ankles," this is beyond idiotic!" Nick sends her a quick glance over his shoulder, only half paying attention to the stolen papers he was stuffing in his saddlebag. "Don't give me that look, I don't like that look, Nick. That look usually means some kind of cut scene and then nearly getting my goddamn head blown off."

"I don't know about you, but I kind of like her head where it is. I've had some good conversations with her head still on her shoulders." Nick doesn't slow down, continuing the prep that had become more than familiar over the past fifteen years. With a sigh, Samantha joins in and moves to check her kit—medical supplies, army-issued knife, pistol. "Oh, not you, too."

"Can't let him go down there by himself."

"Then we're at least calling in an air strike."

"An air strike," Nick repeats incredulously. "That's a horrible idea, Vail."

"Just a tiny one, okay? Just a small boom that'll have the insurgents running away!"

"And command will know where we are."

"And we'll do twenty years in Leavenworth for looting." Chris seemed resigned now, scarf dangling loosely around his neck from the headpiece of it. Samantha yanks her own scarf off and drops it to the ground, wisps of her hair falling out of the braided bun she'd put it up in that morning.

"We're not looters, we're liberators of precious antiquities." Chris and Samantha finished the last part of the sentence with him, the mantra intimately familiar. It was supposed to make them feel less shitty about stealing antiques and selling them to the highest bidder, but mostly it just felt as old and tired as Samantha did sometimes.

"That's great and everything, but we still have no clue what's down there. For all I know, we could be risking our necks for a medieval toaster oven."

"Medieval toaster ovens are rocks, babe," Samantha comments, looking up from securing the strap of her bag. "We got those all over the place."

"You know what I mean. Stop being such a smartass when I'm trying to drill some common sense into our fearless leader."

"Let me know how that goes for ya." Nick brings a piece of printer paper out of his bag again, tapping it almost angrily. "Sarge, chill out with all the pointing."

"What's that say, Sammi," Nick asks, thrusting the paper out for her to see.  _Haram_  was written in bold strokes in the center of the paper, probably with some kind of fountain pen that had been modified to hold ink better since there were no splotches. Below the word was coordinates, the same ones that she knew would match up with the village below them.

"Do you really want me to answer or would you prefer to wow us with your theatrics?"

"It says  _Haram_ , and we all know that means treasure."

"It doesn't actually."

"It means forbidden knowledge," Chris snaps, looking dangerously close to stamping his foot. "You'd know that if you'd paid any attention to our translator! Around here,  _forbidden knowledge_  can usually be translated into  _ancient mummies will kill you slowly!_  I don't know about you all, but I wouldn't put it past ancient Mesopotamians to curse an entire village!"

"Or there could be a room filled with treasure down there somewhere that this Henry guy wants as badly as you two want plastic flamingos in your front yard."

"I don't actually want flamingos," Samantha interjects, raising her hand. "I'm more of a lawn gnome kind of gal." Nick and Chris send her unimpressed looks and she waves the rambling off again. "You're right, we can talk about lawn decorations later."

"My point is if we get the treasure, then we can probably get the dude that wrote this letter to pay double." He swings gracefully into his saddle and Samantha would stake her thumbs on the fact that he was part elf or something. "Mount up." Knowing she'd get yelled at for at least four hours if she allowed a superior officer to run into danger alone—she already had the Colonel's command tent memorized from past incidents—she follows suit and takes up the reins in one hand.

"Nah, it's not happening," Chris argues. "We're stayin' here this time."

"She's already on her horse, Vail."

"Good, then she and I can head back the way we came towards civilization and gun-toting maniacs we can trust."

"Vail, don't make me do this." Nick brings out his knife, the metal edge winking in the sunlight. Samantha liked when metal did that, the flash of light reminding her of a camera flair and summer afternoons with her family.

"You gonna stab me? I'd like to see you try because we all know I'm faster than you." He wasn't, but Samantha didn't burst his bubble. "Come on, man, do it." He holds out his arms, baring his chest beneath the olive-green tee. But Nick had another idea in mind, the sharp blade of his knife cutting through the leather canteen that held their only scrap of water. "What the fuck? It's gonna take us a whole day to get more water now!"

"There's a well in that village with clean water. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I must have left it in my other pants!" He really did stamp his foot this time, throwing his scarf to the ground in his temper tantrum. "You're such a dick!"

"Would you relax? We'll just slip in and slip out before they even realize someone's there." Samantha bites her lip, urging her horse up next to his so that she could look down the slope again. The village was empty apart from the troublemakers, the gunfire echoing like fireworks.  _Maybe it's possible_. Except her gut was saying the opposite, intuition telling her that it would be safer to wait it out until the men below them grew bored and moved on. Too bad Nick's intuition had shriveled up and died in infancy.

Twenty minutes, two empty magazines, and a fracture later, Samantha realized this was definitely  _not_  a slip-in-slip-out type of job. She also decided the best way to kill Nick would be with some clothespins and a whole lot of lemon juice.

"We make it out of this alive, Morton, and I'll kill you with my bare hands," she screams as they continue in a dead sprint through the village.

"Love you too, Sammi!" Another sharp turn and a hail of gunfire had them dropping to the ground and sliding over the rough floor, her fractured ankle throbbing when it hits a wall. She bites back a scream of pain, forcing herself back to her feet to stumble after the other two. Neither of them seemed able to stay up, all three of them tripping over each other in a mad dash to get away from the gunmen coming up behind them. Another sharp turn and then the three of them were tumbling inside an abandoned shop, Nick kicking the door shut behind them.

"Slip in, slip out," Chris screams shrilly, shooting at some of the men coming up behind them. "This isn't that, Nick! This isn't what we always do!"

"Get to the stairs!" Samantha grabs the back of Chris' shirt and hauls him up before taking off again up some stairs that led out onto a veranda on the second floor. Out of ammo and running low on patience, Samantha throws her useless pistol at one of the men, managing to bring him to his knees as she started up a second set of stairs. Chris was waiting for her on the roof, jutting his hip out for her to take the spare pistol he'd brought along. "Grenade!"

"Goddammit," Samantha shrieks as she's launched onto the next roof by the force of the blast. She rolls onto her back with a grunt of pain, quickly snuffing out the small flames trying to eat through her Pink Floyd top.

"I hate you," Chris roars, kicking his legs against the roof. "I didn't even wanna come to this country!" The three of them huddle up against the side of the roof where they had some decent cover, Samantha's hands shaking as she attempts to turn off the safety.

"Just let me think for a second," Nick yells back, panicked. With a growl of frustration, she attempts to fight off the effects of her adrenaline, forcing her hands to steady so she could flick the safety off and chamber a round.

"If anyone is listening, this is L-26, urgent, hot!" She looks over her shoulder, finding Chris yelling into the walkie. She doesn't focus on that for long, turning to face a crumbling wall that would probably reach her thighs had she been standing, using it as cover as she begins firing round after round at the men on the ground. Even in her panicked state, she's able to hit a few of them as she relies on the years of training she's had.

"Did you just call in an air strike?!"

"Yes, 'cause I'm gonna take these bastards down with me if I have to die here!" Samantha drags the men to the ground with her seconds before a rifle shot clipped the top of the wall, knocking more rubble down on them. "Son of a bitch! This is not how I wanted to spend my Saturday afternoon!"

"Come on," Samantha growls, yanking him after her. They keep low as they run, dropping down onto a lower roof and then up onto another one after that as the bullets zipped past them through the air.

"Where do they keep comin' from?" They attempt a third jump only to be driven back by more men.  _Are they popping out of the fucking desert or what_ , she thinks irritably as she dives down once more. On top of her swelling ankle, she's got minor burns along her shoulders and now she's pretty fucking sure her ribs are bruised. "We're gonna die!"

"Shut up and let me think," Nick yells again, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"We're gonna die and it's gonna be all your fault!"

"Let me think!"

"Are you sure your capable of that," Samantha retorts, punching his arm as hard as she could. "Because it seems like the only part of you that does any thinking is your dick! I'm never gonna own a gnome now and it's  _all_   _your_   _fault!"_  Each word was punctuated by another hard punch to his arm until he squirmed out of her way.

"I'm thinking!"

"What are you thinking," Chris demands, the vein in his forehead bulging out. "Huh, genius?"

"I'm thinking… We're probably gonna die here." The muscle in Chris' jaw was twitching as he pounded his fist against the roof with a growl. There was a high whistle and a massive explosion when Chris' fist made contact a second time, then men were shouting and getting the hell out of dodge.

After sharing a shocked look, they crawl over to the edge of the roof and peer down at the crater left behind, the sand scorched black from the flames. "You see? My air strike came in handy! What did you do that was actually useful today?!" Samantha lets her head fall down onto her arms, heaving out a sigh of relief at the fact that she still had a pulse.

"Oh, thank fuck," she breathes. They were given second of peace to gather their wits, Chris and Samantha latching onto each other in a tight hug. The moment didn't last long, however, the building giving a rough jolt that had them straightening up again to look at the stone beneath their knees. "That's not good, that's not good!" The front of the building caves in underneath them, sending them tumbling down with the other rubble.

The sand seemed to suck her in, drawing her further and further from the remains of the shop until she was in freefall, flailing arms catching on rough stone and instinct having her cling to it for all she was worth. She lets out a pained groan, blinking the sand out of her eyes so she can see what exactly she was holding onto.

"What in the hell?" Looking up, she could see part of an eye, the bridge of the nose she was clinging to, and a high sloping forehead carved from dark stone that had degraded over time. Beneath her was an opened mouth and a yawning hole that went too far down into the earth for her to make out. "Guys, get me out of here!"

"Babe, look at me," Chris says. Samantha tilts her head back in order to make him out, the dusty cellphone in his head making a faint clicking sound as he snapped a picture.

"Why?" It was a simple question and she didn't feel like she could manage anything more sophisticated than that at the moment. The muscles in her shoulders were screaming at her to just let go and let gravity do its job, but she adjusts her grip and holds on tighter to the rock.

"You look like a booger."


	2. Exploring Tombs

Samantha was just beginning to wonder how much worse her day could get when she heard the booming voice of Colonel Greenway somewhere above her. Suddenly letting herself fall into the black pit of possible death and scorpions was much more appealing than it had been an hour ago.

“And just what the hell do you think you’re doin’ down there, Blake,” he yells, looking down at her in the crater. She had settled herself into the statue’s opened mouth, feet dangling over the edge and one hand holding onto the smooth stone.

“Just hanging out, sir,” she calls up to him, squinting behind the lenses of her cracked sunglasses. “How’s your day been treatin’ you?” Greenway doesn’t respond, scowling down at her like she was a misbehaving child. Come to think of it, that wasn’t too far off the mark.

“Why the hell aren’t you in uniform?”

“I didn’t expect to get dragged all the way out here this morning, sir. I had the day off before Tweedledee and Tweedledum screwed it up.”

“I find it hard to believe you had nothing to do with that scenario. How about I run one by you all that even Blake can understand: Three assholes from long-range reconnaissance, that’s y’all, traipse all over Iraq in search of valuables that they can sell on the black market in order to pad their retirement funds. All the while, you got the idiot insurgents that don’t even know they’re covering up your tracks by just doin’ what they do best. That sound familiar to any of you?” Samantha keeps quiet, focusing more intently on her boots than the angry superior above.

 _If I look up, he might bite my head off_.

“Sergeant Morton!” There’s a loud smacking sound that drew her attention to the top of the crater, craning her head back to see the new woman that was talking. “Where is it, you cretin?”

“What’s going on up there,” she yells.

“Nick just got slapped so hard _I_ felt it,” Chris calls down to her with a crooked grin.

“Where are my papers,” the woman demands, louder this time around. And all of a sudden, Samantha realized what had went down almost a week ago. All of them had gathered in a local bar since they knew they had some downtime coming up the next day, drinking a little more than was wise at their age. Nick had wandered off with an archeologist of the blonde variety at some point, though Samantha had been more focused on getting Chris’ belt undone. _What was her name again? Jane, Jess?_

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nick says a little too quickly. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Really, you wanna go that route? I had sex with Morton three nights ago and then he stole my map and letter while I was sleeping. I feel I should congratulate you on acting like a human being for fifteen seconds, I’m sure it was a record.” Samantha lets out a snort of laughter, covering her mouth with her free hand to muffle the sound.

“Well, that’s just rude.”

“Where’s the goddamn map,” Greenway demands, anger still simmering in his voice. Nick launches into a long explanation, one of many he’d practiced over the years, as the blonde woman comes to stand at the lip of the crater and look down. _Jenny, that’s her name!_ And she was pretty, too, but not really the type that would stand out in a crowded bar unless someone had a specific type. _Or_ , she adds mentally _, papers they wanted to steal_.

“Hey,” Samantha greets with a pleasant smile, swinging her feet back and forth. “Exciting day, huh?”

“Why are you sitting in the mouth of an Egyptian statue,” she asks, brows furrowed.

“Well, I was hanging from the nose, but then Chris kept calling me a booger. I figured the mouth was a safer choice anyway.” Samantha and Jenny share eye contact for a moment, the latter looking on in disbelief while the former seemed completely at ease with the situation. “Nice scarf.”

“Uh, thanks. I got it at Target.”

“Would someone get Lieutenant Blake out of that damn hole,” Greenway shouts. “I have a hard enough time takin’ her seriously, but I can’t do it at all while she’s just sittin’ in that mouth like it’s normal.”

“Wait a second, this is actually Egyptian. This shouldn’t be here at all, unless…” Jenny’s eyes widen and then she’s sprinting away, beginning to shout out orders.

“Is this thing really Egyptian,” Chris asks, squinting in the harsh sunlight. Samantha shrugs and runs her hand over the bottom lip of the statue, smooth and cracking in places. “How can she tell?”

“It’s really not that hard,” Samantha tells him. “All the ancient civilizations had their own distinct styles, and anyone trained to spot the differences would be able to tell. I’d guesstimate that it’s at least five thousand years old, give or take.”

“How do _you_ know that? You barely ever paid attention in your classes.”

“Some things just stick, Chris.” There’s some more talking aboveground, too low for Samantha to make out properly. “Now what’s goin’ on?” Chris holds up a finger to signal patience, but hers was in short supply these days. A moment later, Greenway’s head appeared with that scowl still in place. Samantha was almost certain he came out of the womb with a scowl and a cigar. “Are you gonna tell me what’s happening up there or should I just start throwin’ out guesses?”

“You three are gonna help Halsey check out that pit,” he calls down to her, the smugness in his voice making her regret ever saying hello to Chris all those years ago. “Looks like you’re stayin’ down there a while longer, Blake.”

“Wonderful.” It was another five minutes before the other three began to rappel down the steep wall, Chris holding an extra rig that Samantha carefully slid into. The vinyl straps and heavy pack were preferable to the hard stone she’d been sitting on, the steady release of the cord lowering them down without a hitch into an enormous chamber below.

There was barely any sand to be found, which led Samantha to believe the domed stone overhead used to be part of a ceiling before the air strike blew it to pieces, some clumps of dark stone spread across the floor like toys a giant had discarded. Like the statue she had become intimately familiar with, the structures in the cavern were made of a smooth black stone that was slick beneath her gloved hands.

“I’m in a large antechamber of some kind,” Jenny says into a tape recorder, looking around her in a state of wonderment. It was like a kid at Christmas, seeing the presents Santa left under the tree for the first time and wondering if the Red Ryder BB gun was hidden amongst them.

“If this is just the antechamber, can you imagine how big the other rooms must be,” Samantha mumbles, letting her pack drop to the ground.

“Can you imagine the curse that must’ve been put on this place,” Chris returns, looking around with the beam of his flashlight passing over the statues that nearly resembled jackals. The features were too pointed and distorted to really be meant for Anubis’ likeness, though, meaning they probably belonged to a sibling god or a parent. A cloud of loose debris rained down on them, no bigger than a few pebbles and some dirt. “Goddamn it, I’m gonna have to wash my hair again when we get back to base.”

“You were gonna do that anyway,” Nick points out, dusting off his shirt with a grimace. “You’re obsessed with having nice hair.”

“In my defense, Sammi fell in love with me because of my hair.”

“Not entirely inaccurate,” Samantha admits with a nod. “It’s just long enough to tangle my fingers in when we have se—”

“Lalala,” Nick says loudly, plugging his ears with his fingers. “I don’t want to hear this. You’re too much like a sister.” Chris and Samantha share a look, both of them letting out identical snorts of disbelief. “Oh, gross! What the hell?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t— Something wet just hit the back of my neck.” Nick rubs his hand along the nape of his neck, but it comes away clean.

“Are you sure you’re not hallucinating? Maybe you hit your head harder than we thought.” But then something wet collided with her shoulder and slid right off. “What the hell?”

“You see? It feels weird.” Another drop of it lands on his arm, glowing silver in the beam of his flashlight as it slides off to the floor. The three of them glance up at the ceiling, noticing the stalactites that had the same silver substance dripping from them like normal ones dripped water. Some of it lands in the palm of Nick’s hand, cupped there and rippling as it refused to absorb.

“Is that mercury,” Chris asks, looking stumped.

“Looks like it.”

“But what’s it doing dripping from the ceiling? That doesn’t seem like a normal thing to find in caves.”

“It’s not,” Jenny assures, coming over to take a look. “Ancient Egyptians believed it weakened evil spirits.”

“Pretty sure it’d weaken anyone.”

“Yeah,” Nick nods,” drive you crazy and then kill you off.”

“Mad as a hatter,” Samantha adds. “Which explains why so many rulers back then went bonkers. You know, aside from all the incest.” Chris arches a brow and she purses her lips in response. “I know, not the time to discuss obscure subjects.” Jenny clicks her tape recorder back on, focusing her light on the small lines carved into the floor that guided the mercury to holes the size of a penny.

“There is mercury dripping from the ceiling into holes in the ground,” she says into the speaker as she walks. “I believe that it forms some sort of canal system that leads to….” Samantha looks up when the blonde trails off, squinting to make out what had caught her interest. As far as she could tell, it was just more darkness that blended in with everything else. _Seems to be a common theme with these people_. “Get the lights!”

“Aw man, they’re all the way back there.” She sends Samantha a sharp look and the other woman holds up her hands in surrender. “Fine, but I blame you if the mercury exposure sends me to the nut house.” The lights turned out to be what was in the bags Chris and Nick had brought down with them, giant things that flooded the entire antechamber with a bright yellow glow.

“That’s good enough, let’s go.” Samantha grumbles under her breath, boots scuffing against the stone as she and the others move back to where they’d been standing moments ago. With the big lights trained on the spot, she was able to see that part of the wall had caved in at some point, revealing a set of steps and a larger chamber on the other side.

“Y’all think this’ll count as our calisthenics for the day?”

“I’m pretty sure Greenway will consider all this stretching,” Chris remarks sourly as they follow Jenny into the hole. “Holy hell. You guys seein’ this?” Samantha was already staring, taking in the six statues of Set that were standing guard around a pool of mercury, covered in years of dust and cobwebs. A thick cable ran in a circle outside of the statues, wrapped three times around the hefty columns that poked out of the ground, and three thicker cables that were holding something beneath the glittering surface of the mercury.

“My great-grandparents would’ve had a field day down here.” Nick steps up next to Chris, aiming his flashlight at the decimated bones piled near one of the columns, gold jewelry flashing temptingly. The three nod in unison when they look at each other, smiles replacing the gobsmacked expressions they’d been sporting. Looks like they won’t be going home empty-handed after all.

Jenny turns on her heel sharply, the focus of her stare making Samantha jump guiltily. “Get everything out of the bags,” she commands. “Bring it in here and we’ll get to work.” The soldiers react to the orders without thinking, an action that had been drilled into their heads since they were kids in basic training. “Blake, stay here and help me document some of this.” She brings a digital camera out of her satchel and hands it over to Samantha, nodding towards the statues.

“You got it.” She powers the camera up and waits for the screen to clear before beginning to play photographer, snapping picture after picture of the statues and even the bones, the flash only highlighting the silvery strands of spiderwebs that dulled the bones’ sheen. “How old do you think this place is?”

“At least five thousand years. Careful with that, you idiot! That video recorder costs more than you make in a week.” Samantha glances over her shoulder and finds Chris fumbling with a small camcorder, scowling down at it.

“Then you’re spending way too much money on your tech,” he complains. “I can go down to Walmart and pick up a camera just like this one and spend no more than twenty bucks.” Jenny makes a noise of disgust, shaking her head.

“Americans.”

“I’m just sayin’, you don’t have to spend a crap ton of money just to have good stuff.”

“Do you think you can point the camera at me and not screw it all up or should I have someone else do it?” He frowns but holds the camera up all the same, grumbling under his breath as Jenny begins to walk down the steps carved into the rock. Nick and Samantha follow behind them, Nick carrying the camera stand easily.

“Work while she’s distracted,” he whispers, keeping his voice too low for anyone else to hear. “We’ll get some of that gold and you can take it to our fence in Baghdad.” Samantha gives a curt nod, shooting a glance over at Jenny before easing her way towards one of the jewel-clad skeletons.

“Pleated skirts, scarab signet rings,” Jenny was saying,” means this man was a High Priest of Amun from the temple in Thebes. There is a ritual burial chain that surrounds the well…” She takes the camcorder from Chris and begins to wander off, never noticing as the others set to work removing jewelry. Samantha was careful not to disturb the bones too much, gently tugging on a golden cuff until it popped off in her hand so she could store it in her bag. “Nick!” Samantha freezes and looks up, making sure Jenny’s attention wasn’t focused on her before beginning to work on a necklace. “Hands to yourself!”

“Lima 2-6, come in,” came Greenway’s voice over the walkie, cracking with static.

“Copy, sir,” Chris answers.

“Get out now. We got reports of bogeys inbound. We gotta take off before we all become a ghost story for tourists to laugh at.”

“Tell Greenway we have to notify the DTRA,” Jenny says from where she’s crouching in front of the scaled chain. “I’m gonna need some specialists from Cairo to confirm my theory on what this place is.”

“Are you insane,” Chris demands. “What, is the mercury finally getting to you or is it the godawful heat?” Samantha straightens up with her satchel bulging, training her gaze on Nick as he looked at the counter weight hanging above their heads. She didn’t have to be a mind-reader to know what he was thinking. Whatever’s in that pool will be worth a fortune to the right buyer, so why not bring it up? Her stomach gave a nasty lurch at the thought, neck itching as Nick unholstered his pistol.

“No,” she shouts, grabbing for his wrist a second too late. The bullet ripped through the metal chain like it was paper, a loud groan starting up as the columns turn and the chains suspended in the air begin to rise. The mysterious object turns out to be a massive sarcophagus, gold and etched into the likeness of some kind of horrific demon wearing a halo of spikes. “What the fuck did you just do?”

“I got it out,” he says defensively. She lets out a hoarse scream as camel spiders the size of her hand begin to creep out of the rock walls, an entire swarm that seemed to have no qualms about crawling over the humans in the chamber. Samantha uses the camera as a bat, swinging it around by its strap to knock the creepy-crawlies off her in a near panic.

“Oh, Jesus, get them off! Get them off!” Angry soldiers she could handle, gunfire was tolerable, but fucking spiders treating her like their personal scratch post? Fucking nope times infinity, this shit wasn’t happening! As if the spiders weren’t bad enough, bullets began ricocheting through the room, Nick dragging her to the ground as Chris shoots at the arachnids wildly.

“Vail, cease fire! Cease fire! You’re gonna kills us all!” Chris was screaming as loudly as Samantha, looking terrified as he fired his rifle over and over. “They’re just camel spiders, for God’s sake! Stop it!”

He only stops when he runs out of ammo, the rifle shaking in his hand as he turns to yell at the others. “Can we go now?! I’ve been shot at, I’ve nearly fallen in a giant hole of murder liquid, and I just got bit by a damn spider! I wanna get out of here before something else goes all to hell!” But Nick wasn’t paying any attention to his partner, his gaze was unfocused and cloudy, like his mind was far away from here. Samantha waves her hand in front of his face, Jenny saying his name a couple of times with no response.

“Let me handle this,” the brunette says, planting her feet firmly on the ground and drawing her fist back. Jenny grabs her before she could swing, Nick coming back to himself directly afterwards. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says with a nod, then furrows his brows as he looks at her fist. “Were you gonna punch me?”

“I still might before today’s over with.”


	3. The Plane Ride From Hell

The plane ride started off nicely, Samantha and Chris sitting as far from Nick as they could get without sitting on the wings. She looks over at her boyfriend, noting how red his bite mark was on the back of his neck. “You okay over there,” she asks, nudging him with her arm.

“I’ll be fine,” he mumbles, rubbing the bite with a wince.

“Why don’t you get some rest? I think you’ve earned it after all the shit we’ve gone through today.” He looked ready to protest, but must’ve decided against it as he laid down with his head in her lap. She runs her fingers through his hair, smiling a little as he relaxes further and further until he was fast asleep.

“You guys alright,” Nick calls from the left. She waves to show they’re fine before settling back in the hard seat and popping in her earbuds. She’s found the best way to pass a flight was with some music to drown out the occasional misogynistic comment that spewed out of Nick’s mouth. He was the classic white guy that thought he had to be the protector, though it mainly came across as douche-y.

 _Take the time just to listen,_ M. Shadows sang, muffling all other sounds, _when the voices screaming are much too loud. Take a look in the distance, try and see it all. Chances are that you might find that we share a common discomfort now_. She smiles, remembering the way Chris had sang this very song as they walked into their first apartment. It had made Samantha laugh back then, considering they were surrounded by a sea of boxes that their parents had sent over.

It seemed like forever ago that they met, a hot summer day in Lawton, Oklahoma when they were still kids that had a rebellious streak and no real idea of what life had in store for them. Samantha met Chris Vail during their basic training, both eighteen and both known troublemakers. They followed instructions to a tee on work assignments and the like, but it was their free time that got them in trouble more often than naught. For example, Staff Sergeant Ezell didn’t take kindly to finding his boots filled with shaving cream and would’ve had them doing push-ups until their arms fell off if he had any actual proof it was them beyond the giggles they couldn’t quite contain.

It really didn’t help matters that they were assigned as battle buddies, stuck together whenever moving around the base was required. Fort Sill wasn’t as large as some of the others, but it was one of Samantha’s favorite places since it boasted a forest they could walk through on days off (or go boulder-hopping if the urge arises). It became a well-known truth that if one did something, the other was probably involved in some way or another.

The pair grew close, decided to take a somewhat similar path in the army (they didn’t realize they’d actually be teamed up as a balance of sorts to an adrenaline junky named Nick Morton three years later). By their fourth year, Chris decided to head to Dallas for a long weekend to meet the nice woman that sent boxes of cookies every Saturday like clockwork.

The Blake family gave him a warm welcome and the Hendersons did the same when they arrived for the Fourth of July barbeque that usually ended with no less than three trees on fire, one drunken accident, and minor burns from Charles trying to feel younger than he actually was (and Uncle Tuck comforting him when the attempt backfires).  

It was three hours after her cousin was carted off to the ER that Chris and Samantha found themselves alone in the backyard, the bon fire little more than a few flames licking at the logs, marshmallows forgotten. He was dressed in a simple tee and jeans, brown hair tousled after he got conned into playing tag by the littler kids. Samantha, at least, looked slightly more put together with her black and green skirt and her favorite tee showing old 80’s horror icons in the Mystery Machine.

“That was some party,” he commented after a while, cheeks flushed from laughter and the humidity. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man in his nineties shoot a pistol that well before.”

“Uncle Tucker’s great,” she nodded with a laugh. “He used to read me all these myths about ancient Egypt when I was a kid. He and Charles live in Cairo since they have jobs at the museum there, they got married last year.” That had been a proud day for everyone involved considering the men had been together since they were fourteen, sneaking kisses and studying old artifacts found during the digging season.

“Man, all my uncle does is take out his teeth at Christmas dinner.” She laughed even harder at that, Chris wrapping an arm loosely around her when she leaned against his shoulder. “It traumatized me when I was kid.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just…” She trailed off for a moment, still laughing. “…That’s nowhere near as bad as my great-grandpa forgetting his pants one year.” Chris shook his head with a smile, looking down at her. He was handsome and kind compared to some of the soldiers she’s met, even-tempered for the most part, though the bump on the bridge of his nose suggested at least one bad fight in his past that led to a broken nose that didn’t heal right.

“What? Do I have something on my face?”

“No, it’s nothing.” She could feel a blush heating up her cheeks when she realized she was staring, gaze seeking out her worn sneakers. Suddenly the metal studs on them was far more interesting than the man beside her. When she chanced a glance back up, it’s his turn to be caught staring. “What?”

“You, uh, you look….” He struggled for a moment, like he was waging the argument of all arguments in his head before letting out a heavy sigh. “Fuck it.” She was just about to ask him what was going on when his lips dropped to hers, warm and tasting of s’mores. The hand at her back traveled slowly up into her hair and the other cupped her cheek, hers following the same pattern up his toned chest and to his shoulders as the kiss deepened. She wanted to stay like that forever, breathing be damned because she didn’t need to as long as he was pressed tightly against her.

“Shit, maybe Alex had a point.” The pair jumped apart like they were on springs, Chris tumbling off the bench as Samantha’s grandma came into view. Even at ninety-three years old, Clem was just as spry as she used to be, and her snow white hair was done up in a style that was all the rage back in the forties. “I just thought you could use a jacket since it’s getting cold out here, but I see Chris is warming you up just fine.”

“It’s not what you think,” Chris said, panic clear in his eyes as he looked up at her.

“I’m old, not blind, dear.” She set the jean jacket beside Samantha on the bench and patted her shoulder with a suggestive wink. “Make me proud, baby girl.”

“Yeah, your family’s way cooler than mine is.”

Just five days after that, they’d had their first date and her family didn’t even threaten to shoot off his toes if he broke her heart. She was pretty sure that was because she’d threatened them that she’d burn all the junk food in the neighborhood if they so much as glared at Chris.

It’s not until she feels Chris sitting up that she bothers to open her eyes again, watching with a vague fascination as he stumbles over to the sarcophagus. The hieroglyphics on the front were clean and clear now, Samantha able to make out a couple that formed a familiar phrase from the family histories. _Hom Dai_ , they said, practically bolded and underlined to the trained eye. _The worst of all Egyptian curses_.  

“Corporal,” Greenway asks, annoyance in his tone,” what in the name of all that’s holy do you think you’re doing?” Her eyes flick to the army issued knife Chris was using to cut through one of the ratchet straps, her tired brain not really catching up at first. _He’s gonna make that thing slide all around the plane_ , she thinks absently. _It’ll be like Dracula’s coffin in that old Leslie Nielsen flick_.

“Baby,” Samantha tries, fumbling with her seatbelt. “You need to come sit down.” When she finally gets it undone, she starts for him only to freeze up halfway through the motion. Greenway had had the same idea, but it had ended with Chris plunging the steel into his chest just as smoothly as a hot knife through butter. “Chris, what the fuck?” Chris stabs the Colonel again, the older man going down with a wet gurgling noise that Samantha knew meant a punctured lung.   

“Vail,” Nick screams, jumping up out of his seat as Chris finally turned away from the sarcophagus. Samantha swallows hard when she catches sight of his face, dark lines following the small veins and one eye completely rolled up in his head. The other soldiers and Jenny get to their feet when they notice what had happened, Nick attempting to hold them off as they drew their pistols.

“Chris, you gotta put the knife down!” He swings and barely grazes her stomach, drawing blood that began soaking into her jeans and top. “Chris, it’s me! It’s your Sammi!” But it was like he was in a trance, features slack as though he were still lost in a deep sleep.  

“Vail, stop it! Drop the knif— Jesus!” He’d swung again and would’ve cut Samantha wide open if she hadn’t leaped back. Nick caught her when her knees buckled and quickly put her behind him. He pushed her just hard enough that she collided with one of the soldiers, Nick taking advantage and stealing the pistol. “Put down your weapon! Put it down!”

“Are you an idiot,” Jenny yells, stepping between the soldiers and Nick. “This is a pressurized aircraft and one small hole could deprive us all of oxygen!” With wide eyes, Samantha grabs the front of Nick’s shirt and yanks him out of the way of Chris’ knife just in time.  

“Vail, put it down. Please, just put it down and we’ll talk this through!”  

“He can’t hear,” Samantha tells them, shaking her head. “It’s not getting through to him, he’s not in there anymore.” The group backed up further and further as Chris got closer with the knife, the blade about to sink into Jenny’s stomach when a loud bang had Samantha’s ears ringing. She wasn’t sure what had happened at first, but then she saw a dark stain blooming across the olive drab of Chris’ shirt. A second shot brought him down, the wheezing breaths ceasing along with the movement of his chest.

“Oh God…” With his hands shaking beyond control, the trigger’s squeezed and a third bullet lodges itself into Chris’ abdomen. The body jerks automatically and Samantha’s air leaves her lungs in the same moment. He was gone, the man she’d thought she’d spend the rest of her life with was nothing more than a lifeless corpse just three feet away. She drops to the ground as the plane gives a sudden jerk to the right.

“No, no, not yet.” She crawls forward, cradling him against her with an arm wrapped securely around his middle. “We’re supposed to go gnome shopping, remember?” Her throat was tight as tears gathered in her eyes, blurring Chris’ face as she bent over him. “I would’ve even let you have those stupid flamingoes. Please, God, just give him back.”

“Watch out!” Nick’s shout made her look up seconds before a murder of crows flew inside, smashing against walls and seating. Feathers rained down in bloody handfuls, gathering in her hair and on Chris’ body until suddenly they were all floating up towards the roof the carrier. Her back hits it hard before her body actually began to float off, Chris wrenched out of her hold when she’s tossed to the side.

She lets out a scream when a seatbelt slaps at her fractured ankle, the metal only adding to her aches and pains.

Looking back, it was no wonder that Samantha was currently in a plane that was doing a steep nosedive towards England. In fact, most would claim it as inevitable if they bothered to dig into her family history. ‘Yes, Miss Blake was insane, but it seemed to be genetic.’ And they could quote her on that if they wanted. None of that changed the fact that wind was screaming in her ears—or was that still her? She wasn’t sure anymore—and her body was colliding hard with the ceiling of the plane, metal ridges snapping fragile bone and drawing blood to the surface.

Her thoughts jolted around in her head much like her body was doing, bouncing from one thing to the next as pain spread through her like fire in dry scrub brush. Through the tangled mess of her hair, she could make out Nick and Jenny, the pair struggling to grab one of the parachutes being thrown around with them.

 _I feel like a fucking ragdoll_.

And it was all because of a lack of water that this mess was happening, not to mention a spider infestation and the cursed remains of a world-class _bitch_ secured in the sarcophagus just a few feet away from where Samantha was currently bumping around. So yeah, she felt she had the right to be a little bit testy and, yeah, she _really_ should’ve seen this one coming.

She lets out a grunt as her back slams into one of the walls, grabbing a ratchet strap before she could leave the floor again. It held her for a moment, the relief a palpable thing that she latched onto just as tightly, but then she heard it, the noise that defined everything left in her little bubble of safety. Ripping nylon and the screeching of metal on metal, then the strap was coming up and so was she and so was the goddamn sarcophagus. And just once she wished she could tell Nick to go fuck himself because this was _so not_ how she wanted to die.

And yet there was that voice again, the family historian from years down the road—probably the cousin that was always so ready to spout out information. Blond hair, blue eyes, though the smooth cocoa of his skin put his Egyptian heritage on display for all to marvel at. _Dottie’s grandbaby_ , she recalls vaguely, _witty and studious just like Uncle Tuck_. ‘Here lies the remains of my dear cousin, a sweet girl if a little looney. I’d like to say we got all of her, but there may have been a finger or two left back in England when they scraped her up like roadkill.’

Or maybe they wouldn’t be able to identify her, and her parents would be left wondering what happened to their only kid. That thought more than anything had spite burning in her belly, the wildfire pain receding as adrenaline flooded her system and her heart beat faster in her chest to compensate. Everything seemed to slow down and become clear for the first time since Chris pulled out his knife and set to work on that damn ratchet strap, the wind turning to a dull roar as she snarled down at the golden façade of the sarcophagus.

“I ain’t leavin’ yet,” she swears in her downhome Texan drawl. “I ain’t leavin’ till I’m good and ready!” For a moment, she thought she’d be okay, that she’d be able to hold on until the plane went down. The hope was back, the adrenaline leaving a foul taste in her mouth, but she didn’t mind it as long as she was still here.

But then the strap broke free and she found herself viewing the next two seconds in a series of snap shots. Jenny’s parachute exploding open, the white fabric catching the breeze and carrying her safely out. The metal of the ratchet strap seeming to wink as it went out next, flipping ass over teakettle. Nick’s gaze landing on her as gravity began to work again. The bright sunlight as she tumbled out of the plane next. The greens and browns of a field as she collided like some kind of asteroid meant to do maximum damage. The wildfire catching again and tearing through her before blessed darkness swept her away.

And then Samantha Blake was waking up.


	4. That Awkward Moment

Sammi gets to her feet gingerly, wincing whenever she put pressure on her foot. Still, a broken ankle was something she’d take in stride if it meant she survived a plane crash. Aching all over, she presses a hand to the right side of her face and makes a noise low in her throat when she feels the bones shifting.

“That’s not good,” she mumbles as she feels her eye bulging in the socket. She turns, trying to find a heading and instead finding a body not even half a foot away. It was a woman, she realized, dark hair matted with blood to a face with the upper right side completely caved in, left arm lying a few feet away in a mud puddle. The next thing she realized was the dead woman was _her_. “Okay, well, that’s worse.”

“You look like shit, babe.” Samantha spins around and launches herself forward into the man’s arms, pulling him into a tight hug as she swallowed a sob. “Whoa, I’ve only been dead two seconds.” He wraps his arms around her waist all the same, cheek pressed against the top of her head.

“Two seconds too long, Chris. How are we still here? I thought we were supposed to crossover or go to the light or somethin’.”

“Ya got me. As far as I’m concerned, my preacher lied his ass off about the afterlife.” They pull apart and look around them at the field they’d landed in. “My body’s about a mile back that way.” He points to the east, a forest starting up around there with skeletal trees marking the new season. It had been winter for about a month now, though they hadn’t felt any change in Iraq. She couldn’t feel the change now either as the crisp wind blew around her, not even moving the stands of her hair. “Hey, do you hear that?”

“What?”

“That whispering sound.” She strains to pick it up over the howling wind but can’t quite make anything out. “It’s a woman calling for help. Come on!” He grasps her wrist in his hand and gives a hard tug, forcing her to follow after him towards the dense woods. Samantha casts one last look at her body over her shoulder before facing front again and focusing on the trees dead ahead.  

“Chris, I don’t hear anything.”

“It’s clear as day!” They get about halfway there before a strange tugging sensation began in the center of her chest, the world melting away and reappearing a moment later, a blur of colors like a picture behind broken glass. When the pieces were glued back together, she found herself in front of a dilapidated pier.

“That was weird.”

“So fucking weird,” Chris agrees, staring around in wide-eyed shock. “Was that- Do we have ghost powers now?”

“Looks like it.”

“It’s night now, too.” She really wished he was wrong, but the late afternoon sunlight had vanished and only the cold glow of the moon lit their surroundings, glinting off parts of the plane and reflecting in the water. Samantha moves over to one of the small fires, sticking her hand through the flames and unable to feel the warmth.

“Hey, babe, check this out.” She waits until Chris is looking at her to do it again, laughing a little. “I’m a Firebender.”

“That’s awesome and slightly unnerving.”

“Right? I can’t wait to show Nick.” Chris snorts, gazing around the wreckage and only paying the vaguest amount of attention to the two cops making their way through the wreckage. They were documenting what they found and clearly couldn’t see the ghosts, so Sammi decided to focus on trying to touch things without her hand going through it. “Do you think Nick’s still alive?”

“Maybe.”

“I hope he is because I’m gonna haunt his ass so hard.”

“We should totally move all the furniture in his tent an inch to the right and watch him bump into things.”

“And we could cut holes in all of his socks.”

“I hear the voice again.” Samantha looks at him over her shoulder, watching as he wanders closer to the glint of gold and one of the cops beneath the wooden planks of the pier. “She sounds like she’s hurt.”

“I can’t hear shit.” She turns fully and follows after him towards the inner layer of the sarcophagus that had been tipped upside down during the crash, a trail of bandages leading up to it. Every instinct was screaming for her to grab Chris and magic them the fuck out of dodge, but curiosity was a real bitch and she was determined to at least kick the desecrated corpse. She might be just the tiniest bit bitter about the whole thing.

The cop pushes the sarcophagus to the side and kneels next to the corpse, allowing Samantha to take in the molding bandages and leathery bits of skin clinging to petrified ligament and fragile bones. It was wrong, though, she’s seen mummies up close before and none of them were this…. Juicy.

_Oh, son of a bitch!_

The mummy’s torso snaps up and sideways, latching onto the poor rent-a-cop and pinning him to the muddy ground, letting out a shriek that made Samantha cover her ear on instinct. Chris just stood a few feet away, swaying in time with the breeze with a glazed stare; he looked like he had on the plane, unaware of his surroundings even as something horrific is happening.

“Fucking white people and raising the dead,” she curses, shaking her head. And granted, her dad was white, but her instincts favored the Egyptian heritage passed down to her through her mother.

Samantha closes the last few feet between her and the mummy, trying to grab at the remains, but her hand simply passed right through. It was like something out of a nightmare, forced to watch as bits of skin and a swirling lifeforce are sucked from the man and absorbed by the corpse. _Looks like Uncle Larry wasn’t lying all those years ago when he told us that scary story about Hamunaptra_.

The other cop follows the noise, tripping over his feet when he discovers the remains of his partner and whacking his head on a fallen piece of timber. He barely has time to get to his knees before the bitch is sucking the life out of him as well, looking slightly less disgusting when she stumbles to her feet. Because now it’s pretty clear that the creature’s a woman as her bones snap back into place and a fringe of lashes cover the eyeless sockets.

The woman says something, a single word in ancient Egyptian—wow, Sammi’s really regretting not taking her great-grandma up on that offer to learn the language now—and then the cops were reanimating, twitching violently before rising to their feet. They follow her as she crawls towards the water like some kind of demented crab, struggling until she was standing and stooped like an old woman with back problems.

“Hey, bitch,” Samantha yells, stomping over to her with all traces of horror vanished. “You either take your little curse off my boyfriend or I find a way to stomp your ass into the dirt.” The creature’s head tilts to the right, the motion fast and sharp like a predator assessing prey. Samantha doesn’t back down, doesn’t even flinch, just glares until she feels like she’s vibrating with pure rage.

“ **He is mine to control** ,” the creature says without ever opening her mouth. The voice in Sammi’s head is strong, decidedly feminine, and goes straight up the list of annoying sounds to number one. “ **He will bring me my king**.”

“King? Hate to break it to you, but the only King around here is old as dirt.”

“ **The one who freed me. He will rule at my side as we take over this broken world**.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have someone with more than two braincells to rub together? I gotta tell you, Nick isn’t really good for anything except causing trouble and screwing up simple plans.” The creature lets out a low hiss, saying something in Egyptian that had Chris jerking behind them, disappearing a moment later. “Where the fuck did he just go?”

“ **To retrieve my king**.”

“Nick,” Samantha gasps,” closing her eyes and focusing on wanting to find him,” Nick, Nick, Nick! I want to see—” The world around her shifts and then she’s stumbling into an alley filled with screeching mice and a man trying to fight them off. “Nick!” She surges forward, putting all of her strength into grabbing the front of his shirt and transporting him to the sidewalk in front of a bar.

“Sammi,” he asks, nearly tripping as he stumbles backwards.

“What level of stupid do you have to be to wander into a dark alley when a reanimated talking corpse is after your ass? I mean, honestly, did your last remaining braincell die in that plane crash?”

“You’re alive!”

“If I was alive I’d be able to do this.” She attempts to slap him as hard as she can, letting out a surprised sound when she actually makes contact with his cheek. “Oh, damn.”

“Ow! What the hell?” She does it again, letting out a delighted laugh when his head rocks to the side from the force behind the blow.

“Lieutenant Blake,” Jenny asks, coming to stand outside. “This isn’t possible, I saw your body in the morgue.” Going for the trifecta, Sammi slaps the archeologist too, but her hand goes straight through without even a red mark left behind. She frowns down at her hand, taking in the fact that it was a dark gray instead of the light brown it had been when she was still alive.

“Would one of you tell me what the fuck is going on here?” Nick’s still rubbing at the red mark Sammi had left on his cheek, looking too offended for words that Jenny had escaped unscathed. “I mean, Vail just popped up in the bathroom and gave me this big _you’re cursed_ speech and then I had a bunch of rats attacking me, and then my dead best friend is popping up like some kind of anti-hero.”

“You saw Chris,” Samantha demands, stepping closer to Nick. “How’d he look?”

“Well, I’ll be honest with you, Sammi, he looked pretty dead.”

“Were his eyes kind of glazed over? Maybe swaying a little bit like he’d just been brainwashed by Imhotep Jr.?”

“Uh… No? Who’s Imhotep?”

“That’s not the point here, Nick!” She lets out a short breath before turning to face the blonde, hand on her hip.

“This isn’t possible,” Jenny says, gaze focused on the ruined half of Samantha’s face. “This must be a hallucination from all of that mercury down in the tomb. You can’t actually be here.”

“A lot of impossible things have happened today, sweetie, try to keep up. I just watched a five thousand year old mummy snap crackle and pop so much that I thought I was stuck in a Rice Krispies commercial, so how about you tell me what the fuck is goin’ on and what we can expect from this one.”

“This one?”

“Yeah, the cheesy knock-off of ol’ toilet paper breath.”

“Ahmanet?”

“Sounds good, we’ll go with that.”

“Wait, there was writing on that coffin we found her in,” Nick adds, looking about ready to lock himself in the loony bin.

“Sarcophagus,” Jenny corrects. He pauses a moment and looks to Samantha with raised brows, the ghost rolling her eyes in response. _Honestly, how’d he get so good at treasure hunting if he didn’t even know what rich Egyptians were buried in_?

“The box of shame and bad decisions that you just had to have,” she informs him. “And that writing said something about the Hom Dai, which usually translates to _leave this bitch alone or she’ll cause an apocalypse_.”

“I’ve seen your file, Blake, you failed history. How the hell do you know about things like that? And while we’re on the subject, how do you know about Imhotep? He was basically erased from all but the most obscure histories.”

“It’s a long story and doesn’t really matter right now.”

“You know what? This isn’t actually happening because you’re dead.” Jenny turns her back on Samantha, facing Nick again just as his eyes began to clear up. “The pair of us suffered a traumatic event on top of toxic exposure, so I think we should head to London to see a specialist that I know.”

“That’s great, but I’d rather see the five thousand year old prune,” Nick states. “Come on, I know where she’s hiding out.” Jenny’s mouth opens and closes a couple of times, looking like a fish out of water as she watches Nick’s retreating back.

“What the hell just happened?”

“Get your asses in gear! It’s a long drive to Waverley Abbey!”


	5. Lifestyles of the Rich and Freaky

Waverley Abbey looks as creepy as most churches do in the dark, cordoned off in police tape as the search of the wreckage continues. Samantha weaves her way through the overgrown weeds towards the front doors, wrapping her remaining arm tightly around Chris’ waist.

“This day has been so fucked up,” she mutters, relaxing a little when she feels his hand cradling the back of her head.

“Tell me about it,” Chris grunts in return. “It was bad enough when I felt forced to help Nick steal stuff that could have us court marshalled, but doing the bidding of Leatherface? Not my ideal job.”

“I don’t even have a job. I’ve just been attempting to slap people and it only works when I do it to Nick.”

“Makes sense, it’s his fault we died in a plane crash.”

“True.” It’s the sound of crunching gravel that made them turn, spotting Nick was he shuffles their way. His eyes were glazed much like Chris’ had been a few hours ago, mumbling something under his breath as he passed the ghosts and entered the church. The inside was just as imposing as its exterior, stained glass and dark stone soaking up the moonlight so that only a faint trickle of it entered through the doors. “Yo, Nick!” He blinks a couple of times, looking surprised when he sees Samantha.

“How’d I get in here,” he asks, more unnerved than Sammi’s ever seen him before. “I was just…. And I saw—”

“Yeah, it’s like one big acid trip.”

“Oh my God, I have to fight a mummy, don’t I?”

“You know, my great-grandparents kicked a mummy’s ass on two different occasions.”

“Yeah? How’d that work out for their relationship?”

“Made ‘em closer than ever. You might have even heard of them.” She pauses with a smile, watching as Nick and Chris both raised their brows. “Rick and Evelyn O’Connell.” There’s a moment of quiet where the men seemed to process that, then Nick was shaking his head.

“Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“I should’ve waited for Jenny. She probably would’ve known who they were.”

“Vail, please go back to being the sane one out of the three of us. Sammi’s not good at it.”

“Says the guy that cursed us,” Chris grumbles. There’s a faint skittering sound off to the left that has Nick spinning around on his heel, trying to follow it with no real luck. Either mummies that suffer the Hom Dai are born assholes or they just get salty about the whole buried alive thing at one point during the five thousand years they were underground.

“Nick, just get out of here,” Samantha advises. “The best thing you can do is run while you still have your soul.” He takes a couple stumbling steps backwards, almost within reach of the doors, and then Ahmanet is tackling him to the ground with superhuman speed. Now that she’s munched on a few cops, she’s looking a little more humanoid than she was earlier. “Damn, that bitch is faster than Tom Brady.”

“Yeah, and she probably cheats as much as he does, too.” Samantha scowls and punches at his arm, protective of her Patriots.

“At least my guy has a normal forehead.”

“You’re just jealous— Oh, the zombies are still up and kicking.” The four cops each had one of Nick’s limbs and carried him through to a table, dropping him onto it with little care of his well-being. Samantha couldn’t blame them either, she’d probably drop him on things if she was able to. “So, do you think we should be useful and help Ahmanet out?”

“Nah, I’m not doin’ anything to help her.” Sammi pats her boyfriend’s cheek and give him an unamused smile. “I tend to feel hostile towards ancient mummies that brainwash the guy I love.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Proving the old saying about talking about devils right, Ahmanet leapt out of the darkness and landed on the table with her feet on either side of Nick’s hips, turning his face this way and that and checking his teeth. It reminded Samantha of all the physicals she’s had when the doctor was a little too handsy, invasive and uncomfortable as sin. She shoves Nick’s shirt upwards, running blackened nails—more like claws the longer Samantha watches—down his flat stomach to his belt.

“Okay, that is basically the definition of Bad Touch.” Samantha strides forward and pushes hard against Ahmanet, managing to get her attention away from Nick for a moment. “Why don’t you pick on somebody your own size?” Ahmanet’s head tilts to the side as she studies the other woman, one claw tapping over Nick’s heart in a considering manner.

“ **You are Egyptian**?” Ahmanet’s voice was smooth and soft in Samantha’s mind, one of those voices that she would normally love to listen to had it not belonged to a rejected cast member from The Walking Dead.

“Why do you care?”

“ **I will need a servant when I rule, you will do nicely**.”

“I’ll poison your tea is what I’ll do. Now how about you get off my friend before he gets anymore screwed up? I mean, the guy’s already a therapist’s wet dream.”

“Hey,” Nick objects, raising his head off the table. “I am not!”

“Oh please, you’d give Will Graham a run for his money.” While Nick and Samantha argued, Ahmanet raised a hand and struck a statue of an angel, bits of porcelain raining down over Nick’s head as she pulled out a curved dagger. She brings the knife down without warning, Samantha covering her mouth with a muted shout, staring in shock as the tip of the blade pauses less than an inch over her friend’s chest.

“A little help would be nice.”

“I can’t move yet.” Ultimately, it’s the sound of the church door opening that helps with the shock, everyone looking over at the blonde woman that was standing frozen a few feet away. Jenny seemed just as shocked as Nick and Samantha, looking on with wide eyes and a slack mouth. Ahmanet lets out a low growl, stabbing the knife down into the table a couple inches from Nick’s ear.

“Run!” Jenny didn’t have to be told twice, sprinting out of the church without a word. “Sammi, go!”

“In case you forgot, Nick, I’m already dead. I’d like to see the bitch top that.”

Samantha’s bowled right over when the mummy jumps off the table, her world seeming to shatter again as the creature goes right through her in pursuit of the blonde. For a moment, everything is just a thick blackness that surrounds her like fog but then color starts filtering back in, like dust motes swirling in sunlight until they slowly formed into a new sight. She rubs at her eyes until the blurriness goes away, staring around at the shelves of books she’s surrounded by.

“What the actual fuck,” she mumbles, making her way to the end of the aisle. There’s an archway to the right, so she takes it and finds herself in an open room. Nick and another man are standing in the center of it, surrounded by old medical equipment behind glass cases and a gurney at the far end near a heavy metal door. “Nick, what’s goin’ on?”

“Pretty much what I’m wondering,” he replies, looking relieved to see her.  “Did you change clothes after you disappeared?” She looks down, finding jean shorts and a Freddy Kruger tank top instead of the singed clothes she’d had on when she died.

“Looks like it, yeah.” She looks to the other man; slightly overweight with dark, graying hair, and half-moon spectacles that reminded her of a middle-aged Dumbledore. “Who’s your friend?”

“A doctor and a lawyer, apparently.”

“My name is Henry Jekyll,” the new man fills in. “And you must be Miss Blake.” He moves over to the desk and picks up a file, flipping through it with vague interest before setting it back down and crossing the room as he continued to speak. “I see that the only interesting thing about you is your unique heritage.”

“She’s unique because she’s Egyptian?”

“No, she’s unique because of her family’s legacy.” Nick raises an eyebrow, but Samantha ignores him as she strides across the room.

“What the hell do you know about my family,” she demands.

“Quite a bit, actually. I did my thesis over one particular artifact that your great-grandparents are responsible for acquiring.” It took her a moment to sort through all the things Nana Evy had picked up during her frequent trips out of London and the States, finally landing on the one thing that would spark someone’s interest enough to write an entire thesis about.

“The golden book.”

“Indeed.”

“Are you the dickwad responsible for stealing it? Because that’s not cool, dude. You nearly made my mom croak.”

“I do apologize, but I felt it would be safer in a private collection.”

“Safer than in a locked vault in the biggest museum in all of Great Britain?” She gives him a wholly unimpressed look, already making plans to find the book and bury it under a mountain of cement. It was bad enough when someone stole the _Book of the Dead_ —Imhotep was a family horror story worthy of three bowls of popcorn and sixty years of therapy—but the _Book of Amun-Ra?_ Fuck all of that.

“I will admit that stealing it wasn’t my finest hour, Lieutenant.”

“Just be happy my grandma Clem didn’t track you down.” He lets out a huff that might have been a laugh, picking something up off a table before crossing the room again to add other pieces to the metal instrument in his hand. “Nick, how’d you get here?”

“I got shot with a tranquilizer dart,” he says, rubbing at a spot on his chest,” then I woke up to a pair of goons dragging me in here. You remember that mission we had in Italy? It was kind of like that except I didn’t end up modeling for a portrait and you aren’t wearing a fruit hat.”

“I think I’d prefer the fruit hat to being dead.”

“You’re never going to let that one go, are you? You die one time and you just keep complaining about it.”

“Well, it kind of hurts my feelings, Nick. Not that you’d know what those were since you have the emotional range of a concussed _goldfish_.” Jekyll clears his throat loudly and both soldiers snap their heads in his direction.

“What,” they demand in unison, frustration beginning to bubble over. If she didn’t end up in Heaven after all of this bullshit, then she was haunting the ever living fuck out of her old Sunday school teacher.

“Do not snap at me,” he growls at them, accent changing and voice deepening. It was like a total transformation was happening in seconds, blue veins running along Jekyll’s face as his eyes turned a murky green color that reminded Samantha of pond scum. He uses the instrument as a three-pronged needle, injecting a yellow serum into the scarred flesh of his left hand that had the transformation reversing just as quickly. “I apologize, sometimes I forget my doses when something interesting crops up.”

“Maybe set a timer on your phone,” Nick advises. “That’s what Sammi has to do so she remembers her insulin.”

“Thank you for the suggestion, Mister Morton.” Jekyll takes a deep breath as he adjusts his leather glove over his hand, hiding away the rough patch of pink scarring. “I believe I have something the two of you may find interesting. Follow me, please.”

He strides back across the room to the iron door, pressing his bare palm against a scanner for his fingerprints to be taken before the latches slide back and allow him to open then door. The room waiting for them looks more run down than the last, all exposed metal and cement with a rusted grating set in the direct middle. Ahmanet was in a forced crouch there, arms chained so they were straight out behind her and a pair of thick chains leading from the floor to the collar around her throat.

“Welcome, both of you, to Prodigium. Please forgive the state of things, we had very little warning to prepare for our newest guest and only the vaguest information Jennifer could provide while recovering from being choked.

“You guys reached out to my mother when you were first getting started,” Sammi murmurs, recalling an afternoon when she was small when her mother’s side of the family took over the living room and forced all of the kids outside to play. She remembers crouching under the window seal and pretending she was Harry Potter as he hid from the Dursleys, overhearing scraps of conversation about a fairly new corporation in the business of capturing monsters.

“Yes, but Eva and her siblings turned us down rather quickly. Imagine my surprise to find her daughter in my office.”

“Imagine my surprise to find the Willy Wonka of evil nasties kidnapping my friend. What exactly do you guys do here?”

“Simple really; we capture evil, study it, and then we dispose of it in whatever the best way to do it is. Ahmanet is the oldest one we’ve obtained so far.”

“What are you doing to her,” Nick asks, looking half-awake. “Why- what are those tubes?” Samantha has to squint past the steam coming in through the grating, but then she can make out the clear tubes inserted along the mummy’s neck and arms.

“Embalming her with mercury so that we can perform a dissection.” That had Nick, Jenny, and Samantha all attempting to talk over each other, all of them trying to be louder than the other.

“No, you can’t—”

“But we could learn so much—”

“You need to put that bitch in the ground—”

“The decision has already been made,” he cuts in, gazing at the archeologist with something like disappointment. “As soon as the mercury has solidified, we are going to dissect her and see what makes her tick in case Miss Blake’s family decides to raise yet another mummy from the dead.”

“In our defense,” she says, waving her hand a little,” we only raised a mummy once. It was other people that kept the family tradition of putting mummies down like rabid dogs going, okay? Case in point.” She gestures over at Nick and Jenny, ignoring their sounds of offense. “If it were up to me, Ahmanet never would have left Iraq and I’d probably be doing push-ups until I lost feeling in my arms right about now.” She stares down at the bloody stump of her left arm. “I’d also have both arms, probably.”

“Probably?”

“The Colonel was a very angry man,” Nick fills in solemnly. “Now, if we could get back to the problem at hand. I’d love to let you cut Ahmanet open like she’s a frog and you’re an overeager biology student, but how about you tell us how the hell all of this will affect me?”

“You’re cursed.”

“Yeah, I got that much from Vail. _Why_ am I cursed?”

“Because you were the one that pulled her out of the pool,” Jennifer says, looking as though she was having an epiphany. “You were the one to help her and now she thinks she’s helping you by…. Oh, that’s not going to end well for mankind.” Nick arches a brow and a hint of pink adds color to Jenny’s cheeks as she blushes. “She’s chosen you to be the vessel for Set. You will rule at her side as she conquers the earth.” Samantha frowns and switches her gaze between her friend and Ahmanet before just settling the full force of it on Nick.

“Why the hell would she choose your ugly ass as her King,” Samantha asks bluntly.

“Rude,” he snaps.

“I died in a plane crash, so I’m allowed to be rude.” He looked about ready to argue, but then Ahmanet began to talk, her voice soft and echoing in the chamber. Nick’s attention slides to her, blue eyes beginning to cloud over as though he’d taken an Oxy and it was finally kicking into high gear. “Nick?”

“Let him go,” Jekyll orders, watching with avid attention as Nick moves to stand on the very edge of the grating. “Give him a chance to break free of her hold by himself.” Nick begins to speak then, his ancient Egyptian coming out halting instead of the smooth slide of Ahmanet’s. _She’s really in his head, she’s taking him away_.

“Nick, that’s not funny.”

“Nick,” Jenny calls,” you need to come back now.” Samantha doesn’t take her eyes off the exchange, unable to follow it as Vail appears on her right. His hand is warm where it grasps her wrist, keeping her from shaking Nick awake. She looks to him, hoping to find concern but only seeing the glazed expression that didn’t belong to her boyfriend. This isn’t the man she was going to build a collection of gnomes with, this was Ahmanet’s slave.

“Chris, stop this.”

“Have to help Ahmanet,” he tells her, breath hot against her ear as he leans in close. “We have to help our queen.”

“The only thing we have to do is pay taxes and die, and I’m pretty sure we can check both those things off our bucket list.” She tried to jerk her arm free, but Chris tightened his hold and jerked her further away. “Nick! Fight her, Nick! She’s just a bully!”

“Don’t you dare say that about her!” He switches his hold to the front of her shirt, shaking her hard enough that she accidentally bites her tongue. With a shout, Samantha kicks Chris away from her, delivering a sharp slap to his cheek that had his head snapping to the side. When he looks up again, his eyes are clear. “Sammi?”

“Don’t.” She holds up a hand when he tries to take a step towards her, shaking her head as she tried to fight back tears. It’s bad enough that she has to deal with a five thousand year old roll of moldy toilet paper, but she doesn’t have a clue how to deal with a brainwashed, abusive boyfriend on top of that. “I know what you just did isn’t your fault, but I need time to process that.”

A loud shriek tears her concentration to pieces, even Vail covering his ears until the noise had died down to a pained whimper. The spell seems to splinter enough for Nick to come back to himself, rubbing over his chest and then scratching at his neck as though he was trying to brush off something irritating.

“Stop it,” he shouts, jerking towards Jekyll and then back towards the creature. “You have to stop, you’re hurting her! Don’t you see how much pain she’s in? Don’t you—” He cuts himself off with a choked sob, hands shaking where they gripped the edge of his blue button-up. “You can’t… Vail, please help.” He looks around for any sign of an ally in the room, eyes wide and pleading in a way that Samantha’s never seen before. Nick Morton doesn’t beg for anything, he demands and he manipulates until he gets what he wants. “Sammi?”

“Maybe we should all take a break,” she suggests when no one else spoke up. “Work on some deep breathing and then get back to the brain storming.” Her gaze lingers on Ahmanet, seeing the anger that burned in her eyes as she struggled against the chains. “Nick, what do you think?”

“I think I need a drink.”

* * *

Samantha paces back and forth between the aisles of bookcases, tugging at her hair until it came free of the chignon she’d had it in. Chris stayed leaning against the window that allowed them to see into Jekyll’s office, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched her move. She felt too full of energy to stay still like he was, her nerves driving her to move and rearrange a few books on one of the tables.

“Babe, why don’t we just talk and get it out of your system?”

“I don’t want to talk,” she mumbles around the thumbnail she was worrying.

“You always want to talk.” She stops long enough to shoot him an unamused look, Chris holding up his hands in surrender. “So, what do you want to do?” She shrugs, moving her hand back to her hair and pulling until her scalp ached. “We haven’t had sex against a bookshelf since college, so we could always try that.”

“Our lunatic of a best friend is literally the vessel for Satan, which my gran will be ecstatic about since she totally called that, and you want to have sex?”

“I just figured it’d be a nice distraction while these guys attempt to kill Nick to break the curse.” Samantha freezes for a moment, staring dead ahead of her before spinning on her heel to look at Chris. “What? Do I have something on my face?”

“Those guys are gonna do what?” He seemed confused until she flung her hand out at the glass, then he made a noise of understanding.

“Yeah, they’re gonna cut his throat or somethin’ because they think that’ll stop Ahmanet. Honestly, she’ll just switch her focus to Jenny since she’s the smartest choice anyway. Think about it, Jenny’s smart and pretty and she knows more about ancient Egypt than Nick could ever hope to learn.” But Samantha was already pushing past him, stalking through the glass and dropping to the ground in the same instant that Jenny barged in through the door.

“What the fuck, Jekyll?”

“You’re going to kill him,” Jenny demands, hot on her heels.

“Nick may be the dumbest man on the planet, but that’s not enough of a reason to shank him!”

“Well, he did break the barrier chain and bring Ahmanet back to life so she could slaughter us all violently,” Jekyll says, voice remaining calm throughout it all. “And do either of you know why he did that? Because he’s just the sort of man needed to bring Set into this world—a thieving, fit, deviously soulless mess of a human being.”

“Whoa,” Chris says, appearing at Samantha’s elbow,” you really hit the nail on the head with that one. Do me next. What am I?” Jekyll barely spares him a glance, left hand twitching at his side as blue lines started to snake their way up his wrist.

“You’re a mindless follower, Mister Vail, a sheep in the grand scheme of things.”

“Ouch.”

“Don’t worry, Nick, this won’t hurt a bit. We’ll simply allow Set to enter your body and then destroy it to ensure the continuation of mankind.”

“By stabbing me with that knife thing,” he asks incredulously. “On _purpose?”_ He looks to Samantha with wide eyes and she rolls her shoulders, bringing her fist down only to have it go right through Jekyll’s cheek. “That’s real helpful, Sammi, thank you.”

“If there was any other way to handle this situation, then we’d do it.” Jekyll’s voice shifted, the accent sounding more like it belonged in an episode of Misfits rather than Downton Abbey. “The _Book of the Dead_ could be of some use in dealing with the Hom Dai aspect of…” He trails off breathlessly, stumbling over to his desk and forcing the briefcase open with unsteady hands. “Of this.”

“The black book was shattered during the last fight with Imhotep,” Samantha admits, shifting from one foot to the other under the harsh scrutiny of Jenny’s gaze. “Papa made sure it couldn’t be pieced back together and my gran buried the pieces all across the globe back in the forties.” Clem and Alex O’Connell had told that story more as a warning than anything, trying to keep their grandchildren from messing with cursed objects even if it meant nightmares for weeks afterwards.

“Then this is truly the only way to go.” The metal injector falls from Jekyll’s hand when he hunches forward with a pained groan, Nick catching it before it could topple to the ground. “Give that to me!”

“Not until you come up with a plan that doesn’t end in me being dead,” Nick states, taking a deliberate step away. “How does that sound?”

“It sounds,” Jekyll 2.0 says as he straightens up into a relaxed slouch,” like I’ve got a new best friend to play with for a while. Dear me, aren’t you an evil little thing?” Nick tosses the injector onto the desk and jumps back at the sudden change, finally realizing that the serum was the only thing keeping Henry Jekyll from falling to pieces.

“On second thought, I’ll just leave and get out of your hair.” But Jekyll was advancing around the desk already, too cocky and self-assured to be the real doctor as he rolls his head on his shoulders.

“Time to go,” Chris decides, grabbing the back of Sammi’s top and dragging her through one of the walls. They end up in some sort of storage room, shelves lining the walls filled with specimen jars and old knickknacks.

“We can’t just leave Nick behind,” Samantha yells, trying to pull free even as Chris continues walking towards the next wall.

“Why not? He’s a soulless deviant like Clem said three years ago.”

“Because he’s our friend!”

“Ahmanet won’t let him be killed when she’s so close to getting everything she’s ever wanted.”

“Tell that to the last guy she chose for Set to wear to prom! I’m pretty sure the Medjai didn’t exactly let him waltz out and start a family in Luxor.”

“She didn’t have the extra powers given to her by the Hom Dai back then either.” Chris finally stops to turn and face her, one hand cupping her cheek and the other squeezing her shoulder. “She’s not going to let some psychotic doctor do more than bruise Nick a little, okay? He’ll be fine and the ritual will be completed, then we can spend the rest of our afterlives together. We’ll build an army of plastic flamingos if that’s what you want.”

“Garden gnomes, I wanted garden gnomes! And, no, that’s not even the fucking point of this argument. I’m not leaving him behind.” She pushes at Chris’ wrist and lets out a surprised shout when he slams her down on one of the tables, head throbbing where it collided with the oak. “Mother of Christ,” she groans, flipping onto her back.

“I’m really sorry, honey, but I don’t have a choice in all of this like you do. I gotta keep you from interfering too much.” He lunges at her and looks genuinely surprised when she delivers a hard kick to his solar plexus, stumbling backwards long enough for her to roll onto her feet. “Sammi, just stay out of this.”

“When hell freezes over.”

“Don’t make me hurt you.” He was advancing on her like some kind of predator, graceful where he’d never been before. “Just go visit your parents, I’m sure they’re upset.” She shakes her head, grabbing a specimen jar off one of the shelves as she passed it. Chris lets out a rumbling growl and lunges again, thrown off balance when she dodges to the right and brings the jar down on the base of his skull. He hits the floor and doesn’t get back up, glass glinting dully around him in the dim lighting.

“I’m never gonna hear the end of this,” she sighs. Samantha runs back the way they’d come, the office trashed and empty apart from Jekyll lying prone in front of a low set of cabinets. “Nick?!”

“Sammi!” She heads through the observation window and spots Nick and Jenny halfway up a set of iron stairs. “Where’s Chris?”

“Taking a nap.”

“Ghosts take naps? Never mind, just meet us in the lobby in ten minutes. If we’re not out by then, maybe come make sure I haven’t been stabbed by somebody.”

“You got it, Sarge.” She was just about to start walking through walls until she found the room she wants, but a glint of gold has her looking to the left and letting out a bark of laughter. “Twenty bucks says I can get my family to stop crying if I show them the gold book.” When no one laughs with her, she lets her shoulders sag. “Oh yeah, I knocked out the only funny man in the group.”

With a sigh, she grabs the gold book and starts walking, the soles of her sneakers scuffing against the floor.


	6. An American Ghost in London

Of all the things Samantha thought she’d do in London during her first visit in ten years, outrunning a fucking sandstorm wasn’t on the list. In fact, she was calling bullshit on the past sixty-two hours of her afterlife. Every window they passed broke outward and turned to sand, joining the colossal wave of it right behind them.

“Did your great-grandparents have to deal with this,” Nick yells over the sound of shattering glass and wind.

“More than once,” Samantha yells back to him. “Once, a giant wave of water took down the dirigible they were riding in!”

“What the hell were they doing in a dirigible?”

“It’s a long story!” They make a right turn and Nick’s forced to tackle Jenny to the ground as a car flipped over them, going right through Samantha and making her world shimmer for a moment. “I fucking hate it when that happens!”

“Well, I hate when my girlfriend knocks me out with jars,” Chris shouts from across the street, his scowl barely visible through the sand and debris.

“Do you really wanna fight about that right now? Because I distinctly remember you trying to _stab me_ on that plane before it was brought down!”

“I’m cursed! What’s your excuse?!”

“I’m dealing with two cursed idiots that want to shack up with a Boris Karloff wannabe! And on top of that, I’ve got half of my face smashed in and it was my good side!” A bus is the next thing to hit her, rolling and bouncing on the asphalt, leaving a trail of busted metal behind until it came to a shuddering halt against a bank.

“You just got hit by a double decker bus!” He seemed more excited than angry as he yelled that, and Samantha could feel hysterical laughter building in her throat. This is definitely an adventure to put in the family history book.

“I know! It was kinda awesome!”

“Let’s get off the street before those two die horribly!” She looks behind her at the pair huddled together on the sidewalk, Jenny watching the display with interest while Nick looked about ready to murder every ghost within walking distance.

“Probably a good idea!” He crosses the street in a flash, pressing a lingering kiss against Samantha’s lips. “I’ll be glad when this is over with and you can stop being an unimaginable tool.”

“Aw, babe, me too.”

“Do you two mind,” Jenny snaps,” we’re kind of on a time limit here!” She and Nick stand up warily, shoulders hunched against the driving force of the wind. Samantha still couldn’t feel the cold of it or the granules of sand that whipped right through her, her clothes and hair remaining untouched by it all. “We need to find the quickest route into the Crusader burial chamber.”

“You should probably just stay here since Ahmanet’s thinkin’ about using your guts for garters.” Both women arch a brow at that and Chris holds up his hands in surrender. “Alright, but it’s your funeral. C’mon, there’s an entrance just past that alley.”

“Why should we trust you?”

“Because I want you guys to find the stone so that Ahmanet can complete the ritual. Also, I’m pretty whipped.”

“It’s true,” Nick says. “He’d make waffles at three in the morning if Sammi asked him.”

“It’s a mutual thing though. I came home drunk one night and she didn’t even mind cooking me the greasiest eggs in Iraq.”

“Maybe just lead the way,” Samantha interrupts. “We can discuss our relationship when an apocalypse isn’t in the making.” Chris gives a curt nod and leads the way across the street, heading into an abandoned train depot and straight over to a doorway that had been taped off from the public. “An ancient burial site stuck underneath modern architecture. Nice to know us Americans aren’t the only ones that tempt disgruntled spirits.”

“At least our spirits are more refined,” Jenny quips.

“Your spirits are about as refined as a squirrel in church.” She rolls her eyes and follows Nick down the stairs towards a platform, the ghosts allowing themselves to topple through the floor and land smoothly on a concrete platform below. Chris leads them out onto the tracks without hesitation, the others dropping down after him and taking in the gloomy surroundings. “Did y’all know that London’s first underground railway was made in 1863?”

“Are you just ninety-nine percent random factoids?”

“About thirty percent factoids and seventy percent Kushary.” The lights lining the tunnel flicker a couple of times and then begin to burst one by one, throwing the tunnel into pitch blackness. “Welp, that doesn’t bode well.”

“At least the glass isn’t turning into sand. I hate that.”

“Yeah, it’s coarse, irritating and it gets everywhere.” There’s a heavy sigh somewhere on Samantha’s left and she guesses now isn’t really the time to quote certain Sith Lords. “Chris, how much father do we need to go?” The lights flicker on again, their glass casings shattered but the bulbs intact, just in time for the group to witness a mob of the undead heading right for them.

“Does that answer your question,” Chris asks as the hoard past them.

“No, it just makes me want to punch someone.” Samantha turns and lands a solid punch against Nick’s arm, her friend flinching and rubbing his bicep with a frown.

“What the fuck, Sammi,” he grumbles.

“You were closer than Chris.”

“Hey, guys,” Jenny asks,” why are my feet vibrating?”

“Probably because this is an active line and there’s a train coming.”

“And you didn’t think to share that information?”

“Well, I’m already dead so….” She trails off with a shrug, scratching at the back of her neck. “Move off to the side and don’t touch the metal rails, you’ll be fine.” The living half of their group presses up against the far wall and then the train was slamming into the ghosts, the world scattering and piecing back together a second later.

“I really hate these time jumps,” Chris complains, glancing around them. They’re still far underground if the crumbling arches and lack of screaming is any indication, the tunnel replaced by a vaulted room filled with high tech equipment and crumbling crypts. “You okay over there?”

“I’ll be okay when Ahmanet is back to being fully dead instead of just mostly dead.” She lets out a gusty sigh, giving the Princess a long look. “I swear to Allah, those Medjai need better methods of punishment other than live burial and ancient curses.”

“I’m with ya there.” She moves over to one of the empty coffins, running her hand over the cold bone of the dagger, fingers lingering over the red stone that was fitted into the end of the hilt. It was pulsing and warm like a heart, a steady rhythm that made Samantha’s mind wander to nights spent with her ear over Chris’ chest. “Sammi?”

“I want to watch her die, Chris. I want it to hurt after what she did to us.”

“If anyone can make that happen, it’ll be Nick.” As though summoned, Nick comes shooting up out of the water with an unconscious Jennifer Halsey in his arms, both of them soaked through to the bone. “That does not look comfortable.”

“Nope.” The undead Crusaders pull them the rest of the way out of the water, tugging Jenny away from Nick and depositing her in the shallow end of the pool. Chris and Samantha move closer, dread curling in Sammi’s belly when she sees that Jenny’s chest isn’t moving. _Jesus, she’s really dead_. Nick looks wrecked where he kneels, blue eyes cloudy with tears for the first time since Samantha’s known him.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Ahmanet says, her English perfect even if it was accented. “She was always doomed just as your friends were.” The creature is whole as she descends the steps further into the chamber, her tattoos clearer than ever against the ashy gray of her skin. The knights dissolve into dust as Ahmanet draws closer, blowing away on an impossible breeze. “There are worse fates than death.”

“Are you speaking from experience,” he remarks, voice hoarse. “Regretting that little deal you made with Set?” He nods towards the dagger in her hand and his gaze snaps to Sammi before meeting Ahmanet’s stare again.

“Come to me.” He staggers to his feet, taking a couple of slow steps before sprinting at Ahmanet, getting slapped down before he could reach her. “I can take your pain away.”

“Right now, you’re the biggest pain.” She lets out a yowl of rage and tosses him through the air, Nick’s body bouncing and sliding off one of the crypts. He manages to get back to his feet and do another run, but she just slaps him back to the ground like it was nothing.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” Chris asks, striding forward and kicking Ahmanet in her kidneys. She stumbles forward a step and lets out a low grunt, elbowing Chris in the nose hard enough to make him drop to his knees. “Maybe you should see a therapist for your anger problems.”

“Yeah, they did wonders with me.” Samantha picks up a rusted sconce from the ground, testing the weight before adjusting her grip and joining the rest of her team. “I can recommend a good one if you—” Ahmanet kicks Nick in the chest, sending him skidding ass over tea kettle across the ground.

“You know, there was always one reliable thing about our team.” Chris is still bent over with his broken nose, but he meets her gaze steadily as Samantha advances. “You can always know that if one of us is around, the other two are close by.”

“And why should I care about that,” Ahmanet questions. Samantha draws the sconce back like a bat, ready to swing at a moment’s notice.

“Because, while Nick and I are annoyances, Samantha’s the real bitch in the group when you get her angry.”

“And you know what they say about scorned women, right,” Samantha asks. Ahmanet turns just in time for Samantha to bring her weapon down, the iron colliding with the mummy’s face and smashing the fragile bones in her cheek. “Hell ain’t got nothing on me.”

“I’ve done a lot of weird shit since I turned eighteen, but fighting a mummy is definitely the one I’ll brag about most.” Chris grabs the dagger while Ahmanet’s distracted, throwing it to Nick and letting out a soft sigh when the other man catches it. Ahmanet lurches forward, but the ghosts grab onto her ankles like a pair of Velcro teddy bears with abandonment issues.

“I really am sorry about this, sweetheart,” Nick rasps as he regains his footing,” but this relationship was never going to work out. It’s not me, it’s you.” He gazes over towards the ghosts and then Jenny’s prone body several feet away, his features softening. “But I think I’ll take you up on part of your offer. See, if I get superpowers, then I can bring my friends back to life.”

“Is he gonna do what I think he’s gonna do?”

“I wouldn’t want to disappoint you this far along, Vail.”

“Nick, wait—” The bone of the dagger slides easily between Nick’s ribs, sending him flat to his back in a twitching and writhing fit.

“Nick,” Samantha screams. She releases the hold she had on Ahmanet and crawls over to him as the convulsions grow worse. “Nick!” He’s completely still when she reaches him, breaths deep and even as though he was in REM sleep. “Come on, buddy, you need to open your eyes.”

“Is he… Is he dead?”

“I don’t think so.” The small veins along his forehead and right cheek turn black, slow crawling lines like tar spilling over the cracks in sidewalk. His eyes open gradually, his pupils and irises splitting and moving until they’re doubles in the sclera. Nick pulls the dagger out of his chest and tosses it carelessly to the side, the blackened stone shattering when it hits the ground.

“Sammi,” Chris hisses, gesturing violently for her to move away. Nick doesn’t even seem to notice the ghost as he stands up, his posture all wrong for the man Samantha’s fought beside for the past fifteen years. He moves gracefully around debris until there was less than a foot of space between him and the mummy, one of his hands cupping Ahmanet’s chin.

“ _Setepa-i_ ,” he murmurs, voice a low rumble in his chest.

“Samantha, get over here.” Nick’s head snaps to the left and Samantha throws herself between him and her boyfriend, ready to scratch his eyes out should he try to hurt Chris. Instead of attacking, Nick doubles over in pain as his eyes shift between their normal form and Set’s. “Sarge, you gotta fight this.”

“We didn’t come this far just for you to screw up a plan again,” Samantha adds, squaring her shoulders. “We still got some gold to sell, remember?”

He lets out a low keening sound and then he’s straightening up sharply, throwing Ahmanet against a wall clear on the other side of the room. He’s in front of her in a flash, pinning her there by her neck. She slaps at him again, but Nick’s stronger and he slams her down on top of a crypt, sealing his mouth over hers in a mockery of a kiss. Ahmanet’s body seems to shrivel in a matter of seconds, bones and ligament drying and petrifying until she’s back to the husk she’d started out as before those cops fed her.

Nick pushes her corpse away from him in disgust, stumbling over to where Jenny was still laid out in the pool of water. He hunches protectively over her body, mumbling and crying, face transforming into something that belonged in a Supernatural episode; his teeth turn to jagged points and black ink raises up along his forehead and cheeks, his howl echoing off the stone eerily.

“Nick, that’s enough,” Samantha yells, not backing down when he glares up at her. Jenny arches beneath him in response, Nick darting off into the shadows as she turns onto her side and coughs up the water in her lungs. “Come on, Chris, let them have some privacy for this.”

“Yeah,” Chris nods,” okay.” He gets to his feet and heads back into the tunnel, lacing his fingers with Samantha’s. They walk for a few minutes in silence, just leaning against each other and reveling in a curse-free afterlife that Chris had been denied from the start.

“You think they got pizza in Heaven?” Chris lets out a bark of laughter, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he turns to face her. “I mean, I’m not gonna complain if they don’t, but I think we’ve earned it after what we just went through.”

“I’m sure the big guy can arrange something for us.” He makes a face as he stares down at his blood-stained clothes, using his free hand to adjust his shirt collar. “Hopefully that’ll include a wardrobe upgrade.”

“Just close your eyes and picture yourself wearing something different.” They squeeze their eyes shut at the same time, Samantha not looking up again until the tank top and shorts changed to a halter top dress and a pair of red pumps. “See? Easy-peasy.” When her eyes flutter open again, Chris is wearing a pair of jeans and an old Darth Vader tee, all of him blood free even if his eye was still a little wonky.

“If you guys are finished being clichéd, how about we bring you back to life,” Nick remarks as he sidles up to them. “Sammi, you can be first.”

“Because you love me or because I make a better guinea pig than Chris does?” He pauses as he thinks that over, then gives an easy shrug.

“I’m gonna go with both.” He cups her face before she could argue, pressing his lips over hers and blowing into her mouth. The taste was surprising considering the fact that Nick hasn’t brushed his teeth in going on three days now, sweet as candy floss with a bitter after taste like molasses that made her cheeks feel warm and her lungs burn. She jerks back and sucks in a lungful of air, pressing her hand over her heart and laughing when she feels the steady beating under her palm. He does the same thing to Chris, the gray complexion gaining color back until he was a healthy tan again even under the bad light of the tunnel.

“We’re alive,” Chris breathes, pressing his hand over Samantha’s where it covered her heart. “Oh my God, we’re back.”  She throws herself into Chris’ arms, not wanting to let him go for anything in the world. “We’re gonna have a hell of a time explaining this to my mother.”

“Just give your families a call and tell them that the army did what it’s best at.”

“Screwing up the simplest of things?”

“Exactly.” Samantha pulls back from her boyfriend, sending Nick a teary smile. He may be the world’s biggest asshole at the best of times, but she still loved him. He was one of her best friends and their team wouldn’t work without the hot-headed adrenaline junky. “Sorry that I couldn’t bring your left arm back, Sammi.”

“That’s alright,” she shrugs,” I’m ambidextrous.”

* * *

The next afternoon finds them back in the hustle and bustle of London, Samantha wanting one last good memory of the place before they ship out to Egypt to start Nick’s training. It was strange to be back in her own body after spending so long as a ghost, but her face wasn’t caved in anymore and she considered that a win.

They’ve just come out of a diner when Samantha spots something across the way, a smile making the corners of her mouth twitch up. “Hey, you still feel guilty about getting me killed, right,” she asks, brown eyes trained on the little store over Nick’s shoulder. The window display boasted lawn decorations with green construction paper taped to the glass to look like grass and a papier-mâché sun hanging from a ceiling tile.

“I brought you back,” Nick frowns. “What more do you want from me?”

“Twenty bucks and we’ll call it even.” He rolls his eyes, but hands the money over all the same, him and Chris watching in confusion as she runs into the store.

“I’m not gonna regret this, am I?” Sammi doesn’t answer, more focused on the object that had caught her eye. She didn’t say another word as she came back out of the shop, grinning when Chris’ eyes light up. “Seriously? A fucking lawn gnome?”

“It was either this or a puppy.”

“Well, you can’t kill a lawn gnome.”

“We should totally name it,” Chris laughs, taking the hunk of clay carefully. It was painted in cheery pinks, yellows, and blues, and it would probably look great sitting outside some little suburban house, but it would never see that lifestyle. In all likelihood, it’ll probably spend most of its time in a saddlebag while they helped Nick control his Mighty Morphin Zombie powers. “Gnorm the Gnome, silent G’s all around.”

“I can’t believe I brought you two back to life for this.”

“It’s the closest thing you’ll ever have to a godson.”

“Fine, but we’re buying another gnome so Gnorm isn’t lonely. It can be called Gned."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kushary plate is a mix of rice, pasta, tomato sauce, onions, lentils, chickpeas and garlic.


End file.
